1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to magnetic tape heads, and more specifically to writing complex servo patterns on flexible magnetic storage media.
2. Background of the Invention
Advanced linear recording media (tapes) store data on multiple data tracks, which run parallel to each other over the length of the tape. However, there is an inherent problem associated with independent data tracks. As the tape moves past the tape head, lateral drift of the tape could result in the head reading or writing on the wrong data track. This would obviously degrade the quality of data storage and retrieval. To ensure that the tape heads are accurately positioned relative to the tape, dedicated servo tracks are usually recorded on the tape parallel to the data tracks. Servo readers on the tape head read these servo tracks. The servo readers then signal mechanisms within the tape drive that are capable of adjusting the tape head in order to maintain proper alignment with the data tracks.
The servo tracks themselves are written to the tape during manufacture by special servo write heads. The head typically has multiple writing gaps, which permit several servo tracks to be written simultaneously across the width of the tape. This increases position accuracy between the servo tracks relative to each other. Currently, servo write heads are constructed from ferrite, which has several limitations. One limitation is the magnetic frequency response. Another limitation is the fact that most of the materials used in thin-film wafer manufacture of recording heads use non-ferrite materials, which are more readily available than ferrite and allow for more process flexibility and compatibility. Thus, using ferrite for the servo write heads increases manufacturing costs due to the need to use different materials and deposition techniques than those used to construct thin-film read/write head wafers.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method for constructing servo track write heads using non-ferrite materials.